St Ives Pottery Earthenware Bowl 1920s

This anonymous small pot could have been made by Bernard Leach, Shoji Hamada, Michael Cardew or Katherine Pleydell Bouverie. Although it is clearly marked with a crisp SI mark in a circle ( in use from 1921) it is unsigned. Dipped in a brown glaze, except for the foot where it would have been held by the finger tips while being dipped, it is simply decorated with brushed wavy lines. It was fired with a small chip to the rim - this flaw and the imperfections of the glaze were apparently of no concern to the potter.

It must have appeared very dull, crude and alien to the British taste of the time. The pottery had just been established, they built there own kilns and used local clay, often of poor quality, and fired their kilns with local wood including Rhododendrons - only a small percentage of the pots made survived the firing. There was a completely different mind set at work here and it took a long time to be appreciated fully.

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An early William Moorcroft "Pomegranate" Vase

William Moorcroft was educated at the Wedgwood Institute, Burslem, and at South Kensignton where he was influenced by the design styles of William Morris and the artist Walter Crane. His tublined, decorated art pieces were always signed and this early "Pomegranate" vase, dating from 1915, is an good example of the high quality of his work.

Now hugely popular with collectors his work was largely ignored until a 1973 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum introduced his work to a wider audience and established his position as a major artist/potter.

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Clarice Cliff: Art Deco Queen

From "Bonkers" to Bizarre. A Coral Firs Bon Jour preserve pot from the early 1930s.

Clarice Cliff, Charlotte Rhead and Susie Cooper - the big design names in Art Deco in England dominated the period and helped introduce modernism to the Great British public, often via mass-produced tableware incorporating bright colours and new shapes. These three women undoubtedly bought into Gordon Forsyth's view of the "educational importance of the appreciation of beauty in mass-produced articles" and the need to break down "the barriers between the fine arts and industrial arts."

Gordon Forsyth was a colleague of Richard Joyce at Pilkington Royal Lancastrian (see post below). Forsyth and Susie Cooper collaborated on the celebrated Gloria Lustre ware produced at AE Gray Ltd.

This pot is not for sale